Exercise guidelines

Over a period of many years, I will make strides in improving myself physically, only to be set back significantly. I am wondering if anyone has any guidelines regarding exercise. I seem to suffer two types of problems. One is pain that comes on gradually through the course of exercise, or the next day, and the other (far less frequent) is pain that comes one sharply during exercise.

In the case of the former, if I were to pick up a weight far heavier than I'm use to lifting, eventually I would feel muscle pain from doing reps. If I didn't feel it at the time, I'd feel it the next day. I'm familiar with the harmless "DOMS" pain. I'd experience pain over the course of a month, though. How would I tell strain from TMS?

As for the sudden, sharp pains, I think that they are often real injuries. I can feel a "pulling" sensation within muscle when this happens. The last time this happened was when I'd walked about 1/4-1/2 mile total through the course of a day. This was all I had the strength in my legs to do. Just as I was getting ready to go to bed, I stood up from a seated position rather quickly. I then felt this "pulling" sensation in my calf. Would exercising your body to the point where it can't take much more set you up for a muscle strain?

I went to a TMS Dr. at great expense and hassle, and the visit was useless. He said that he refused to speculate as to what might be a real injury, and what might be TMS. The whole point of the visit was to get some sort of guidelines for exercise. He said that I should push through pain, but not too much.

I know my issues are mainly neurological, since I have the tender points. I don't know if this is the result of brain damage or simple TMS. During the most stressful period of my life theretofore, I was in a crash in which I hit my head. I didn't lose consciousness, but sustained a concussion. Any ideas?

Thanks.

 

"When" the TMS comes on is irrelevant, you should live as you want to live day by day. Patterns are infinite in number and they mean nothing, the only thing that matters is that you stop thinking about what your body is doing.

In TMS healing it's far more important to understand "why" you would exercise to a point where your body couldn't take any more? As a former TMSer and lifter I know the answer. But healing comes through the deeper understanding of why you lift in the first place. 60 -70% of the people I work with are marathon runners, the other 29% are lifters, exercisers and health junkies. Those who fully understand why they do such things heal. The healing is within the understanding, not from the doing.

SO

 

It seems to me that what you are saying is that once the focus is taken off of the physical, TMS will simply recede into the background. When I was young, I exercised for healthy reasons. For years, I've exercised to get back to a place where I can live independently, return to work full time, etc.

I have asked myself whether all of this is "stress" rather than "TMS".

When I "injured" my calf with a sharp pain recently, I felt that I had become pretty fatigued physically. Psychologically, I found it unbearable to sit or lie down for half a day until I recovered. So, I walked around some more. This made me feel more relaxed psychologically, but put be in more pain physically. I didn't think it would be that big a deal until I stood up too quickly, and felt a sharp pulling sensation in my leg. As a result of this, my walking ability is compromised even further three weeks later. This has become a cycle in which I feel trapped.

When I took a turn for the worse, and lost years of progress, it was because I was impatient at the pace of my life as a result of lack of physical strength. The same can be said now. I'm not curling 30 lbs to achieve physical "perfection". I'm curling 5lbs so I'll eventually have enough strength to do one push up, to be able to live on my own and carry groceries.

 

Heres the thing- there aren't any true "guidelines" for going back to exercise due to TMS. All of the issues you are mentioning sound like TMS to me and not "true" structural injuries like fractures. Since there is nothing structurally "wrong" you'll want to work on your TMS healing strategies and as the pain decreases, gradually increase you activity to tolerance. You can't "injure" your calf from doing nothing...that is TMS. A minor muscle "strain" from TMS should clear up quickly...if it doesn't you need to think psychologically to heal.

One other thing- what do you mean by your issues being neurological? Did you have a major head injury from the fall? A mild concussion should heal in a matter of weeks. I have spent some years working in the field of traumatic brain injury rehab and can tell you that trigger points in muscle are definitely not caused by concussion.

Let me know if you have questions about that, hoping it helps you re-affirm your idea that these issues are TMS and there is a lot of hope for you getting back to exercise.

 

@Steve Ozanich your stats about marathon runners and lifters etc. scare me a little... Really only 1% of TMSers not exercisers/health junkies? I am trying to work out if I am in the right place and I really can't tick any of those boxes!

(P.S. I read your book and dog-eared so many pages I think it's now twice as thick as it was to start with, thank you

 

Well I have a lot of ideas--too many to elaborate on since I have to get on with my day and get my own exercise in--this is a message board--I don't know you in the least and a TMS doctor did not satisfy your needs to understand what is going on so I have no qualification to do any better not having seen you nor being a doctor.

You are bandying about some terms that are not part of the TMS vocabulary such as "muscle pain", "strain", "neurological", "simple TMS", "brain damage".

It sounds like your TMS physician did give you some guidelines, who is he? How much did it cost?

What TMS books have you read? Have you read any of them twice?

I've got to get on with my day but if you answer some of these questions, I'll try to get back to you with my thoughts later.

Have a good Easter or Passover,
tt/lsmft

 

Since two people have addressed it, I'll clarify something. When I say "neurological", I mean that which involves the nervous system in some way rather than an orthopedic (what is often described as "structural" in TMS jargon) issues. I use the term "neurological", perhaps imprecisely, to encompass "faulty" neuron firings as a result of thought (conscious and unconscious), as well as neurological regulation of the immune system, and structural brain injury. A neurologist that I saw early on stated that people with head injuries commonly develop chronic pain conditions as a result of damage to the limbic system (that can manifest long after the initial injury). I have no way of knowing if this has happened to me or not.

It seems that most of the symptoms of TMS involve disruption of functioning of the autonomic nervous system, which controls blood flow through muscles, digestive processes, etc.

You are bandying about some terms that are not part of the TMS vocabulary such as "muscle pain", "strain", "neurological", "simple TMS", "brain damage".

I would agree that "muscle pain", "strain", etc. are not part of the "TMS vocabulary", but I feel they describe what I am subjectively experiencing. Muscle "strain" is a real phenomenon, and it's something that can plague a TMS sufferer as much as anyone else. I don't know if what I'm experiencing is part of a TMS phenomenon, or something else. I use the term "simple TMS" to differentiate the origin of my problems from an orthopedic in nature.

It sounds like your TMS physician did give you some guidelines, who is he? How much did it cost?
Literally, the only guidelines given were what I'd mentioned. I was told to push through the pain to some degree, but not to "be a masochist about it. As to expense, it wasn't catastrophic. Someone took a day off from work to give me a ride, and we spent five hours in the car. This was the main expense. I feel the doctor did try his best, so I'd rather not badmouth him. He is one of the doctors listed on the TMS Wiki practitioner page.

I have read three of Sarno's books.


The reason I'm writing any of this is because I'm trying to get some guidelines for moving forward. Through lots of hard work, I went from being almost completely immobile for years to being able to walk several miles every few days. All in all, things were, at long last, progressing well. I had decided that all of my problems were psychological, and that my pain was an "illusion". With this in mind, I pushed myself harder than usual, and felt a "pulling" sensation in my calf. The pain would build the more I tried to push through it. Only be curtailing activity for about two months did the pain go away. Thereafter, I was very much weakened, and felt another "pulling" sensation in my leg (as described above).

Even with TMS, wouldn't a "pulling sensation" in a muscle, followed by immediate pain, be indicative of an orthopedic injury? Is it likely that fatigued muscles are more easily injured than those that aren't? I don't know.

Thanks for the replies so far. Happy Easter/Passover to all of you as well. I think I'll get some sunlight and forget about this for a while.

 

I don't think you can hurt yourself walking--maybe competitive speed walking--or walking up Everest--but not everyday walking. I've run 13 marathons, hundreds of races from 1 mile sprints, 5k, 10k, halfs and cross-countries, experienced "injuries" on occasion, but none that didn't heal in a week or two where I couldn't get back out and exercise on them gingerly. I now play tennis on an arthritic hip almost daily and run in the pool for a half-hour. Don't let one muscle or joint stop you from exercising, find an alternative activity if you need to. Work with a trainer to find something else if you have to. Call back that TMS doc and tell him what's going on and advise you. When you were a patient of Dr. Sarno's he considered you a patient for life and you could call him with new symptoms and he would "walk" you through them.